Minecraft: Bowslinger (Sorry, no more updates)
by Dont Wait Up - Gone Fishing
Summary: Steve, a miner and hunter, realizes that sometimes playing 'lone wolf' just isn't an option.
1. Archer

I carefully crouched, peering over the edge of the cliff and placing blocks of dirt in the shape of a promontory. Slightly less than a chunk away, grass was already growing on the fresh dirt I had placed. Earlier today I had spotted a vein of iron ore on the other side of the ravine I was trying to cross, and though it was risky to try and maneuver over a ravine-especially as sunset, when Endermen and Creepers could be coming out of their caves- I needed the iron.

Suddenly, I heard the unmistakable _whoosh_ of an arrow as it flew by my ear. Startled, I stumbled backwards, and my right foot slipped off of the tiny bridge. I threw my arms out in front of me grabbed the dirt I had been standing on just a split second before I would have been falling to my death. I quickly clambered back onto the ledge and glanced around, searching for the skeleton that had shot at me. Bingo- under a tree, hidden beneath the leaves brushing the top of its head. I stood and faced it with my full height.

"Don't shoot!" I cupped my hands around my mouth so it could hear me. It drew its bow again. I ducked, but continued talking. "I have a full cluster of arrows in my backpack. You don't shoot, and they're all yours." Its bowstring slacked a fraction of an inch, but quickly grew taut again.

"Alright," I sighed. "I didn't want to have to do this." I pulled out my own enchanted bow, drew an arrow, and struck the skeleton in the head. It fell with one blow. I ran and jumped what was left of the gorge and walked over to the pile of bones. Some of its arrows were in good enough shape to be salvaged- unfortunately, it being a very old body, most of the bones were too caked with grime to be made into fertilizer. I placed my new arrows in my quiver and slung it back over my back, turning around to go finish building my bridge.

In my little cobblestone house that night, I sat stitching a new leather strap on my quiver to replace the old, faded one. Rufus, my wolf, sat at my side happily watching me work. After a while, my fingers were hurting and my eyelids were heavy, so I set the quiver down in the chest at the foot of my bed and rubbed Rufus behind the ears. He wagged his tail.

"Oh, does that feel good, boy? Does that feel good?" He nosed the palm of my hand playfully. I got the message. "You're hungry, huh. One second." I crossed the room to my furnace where I kept my raw pork. When I pulled it out, Rufus flipped over, showing his belly, and begged. "That's adorable, Rufus!" His tongue stuck out of the side of his mouth, and I tossed him the meat. Rufus attacked it hungrily.

"Okay, okay, I get it, you were hungry," I laughed. "You don't have to put on such a show, boy!" He quit mauling the pork and instead resumed eating in his normal fashion. "That's more like it." Exhausted, I crawled into my bed, and Rufus (after finished eating) crawled onto his square of wool where he slept. I closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep, dreaming of dragons and magical crystals in a far-off world.


	2. Eleven

I was in a cave… It was frigid, and the damp air smelled like rotten flesh. I could hear the echoing ambience of the unlit areas surrounding me. I placed a lit torch on the wall, and a single ray of light shone down on a small chest at the end of the hallway. Curious, I slowly walked towards it, careful to light the cave as I went.

I kneeled in front of the chest, flipped the top back, and looked inside. It was completely empty except for a single book at the bottom. I pulled it out and wiped off the dust on the cover, then started turning the pages. It seemed to be an enchantment book, but it was all written in some foreign tongue I couldn't read… After I flipped to about the halfway mark of the book, I saw a lone phrase written in Minecraftian:

"May the hellish fiends surround you, feast on you, leave you crying for mercy; they will feed on your shrieks and leave you alive merely to continue hearing them," I read aloud. "Signed, Herobrine." Below was small, jagged writing scrawled across the page, which I also read out loud.

"Believe what the Herobrine says; O, he truly is a monster! Suicide is painless, friend, should They fall upon you!" And even below this writing was more of Herobrine's perfectly slanted cursive.

"End him, End him, End him, End him- Who should disturb thy peace?—He speaks the spell and wakes you from your sleep!—End him! Does he not deserve it?—Bring him to his knees, and End him!" As soon as I finished reading the chant, the walls began rumbling. I heard the wailing of a banshee from behind me, and I turned around just in time to see the wall behind me get sucked into oblivion. A gargantuan, black creature with furious purple eyes emerged with the greatest speed, lunging for me hungrily. It unhinged its jaws and spat blood on the floor in front of me, causing me to slip and fall on my back. It knocked the air out of me and I shrieked for help, but no one heard. The demonic creature ascended on me, wrenching the book from my hands and lunging for my face.

At the second when its disgusting jaws would have been clamped around my neck, I gasped and woke up in my own bed, sweating as if I was in a sauna. I looked over at Rufus- he looked concerned.

"Have I… Have I been tossing and turning long?" Rufus cocked his head, his way of saying yes. I groaned and collapsed back on my pillow. "I keep having the same nightmare over and over again. Third time this week, and it's only Thursday." I looked out the window and groaned again. "And look, it's probably only two in the morning! I'm sorry for keeping you up, boy." Rufus wagged his tail gently as if forgiving me.

Eventually, poor Rufus fell asleep, but I felt restless after the dream and stayed up the rest of the night looking out my window. What could it mean? The entire dream was so realistic. I could have sworn I was actually there when everything happened, but at the same time, the creature was too nightmarish to be real. It was almost as if the most horrendous phobias in my subconscious had simultaneously awoken and attacked me the one time my guard was down- when I was asleep.

It seemed like days before the sun finally peaked out from over the hills and I could head to my mine to start another normal day of searching for diamonds. When it finally did, I heaved my iron pickaxe over one shoulder and my quiver and bow over the other and left some pork for Rufus whenever he felt hungry. With that, I went through the wooden door that led to my front lawn and made my way back to the ravine where I work.

It seems like a dangerous job, Mining does. It's actually a lot less hazardous than one might think. We miners travel in groups, so should we encounter a mob we're prepared to fight. Pitfalls and dungeons are easily enough avoided, and lava hazards are fixed simply with a bucket of water. The biggest danger would be getting lost- which happens a lot less often since we established the 'travel in groups' problem- and miners are always encouraged to bring food with them when they go under, should their team be lost for an extended period of time. I've never had much problem with any of the threats, though, because A.) I have an extremely refined sense of direction, and B.) I am by far the most skilled archer in the entire company (not to sound full of myself.)

I showed up at the shaft a few minutes early, but some of the other workers were there too.

"Hey, Steve!" I looked around and saw my coworker, Eric, waving from the other side of one of the mine carts. I waved back, and Eric jumped over the cart to come talk to me. "What's up, man?" I shrugged. He interpreted the answer as 'I'm okay' instead of my intended 'I don't feel like talking right now.'

"So this weekend me and some of the guys are gonna go play some Spleef. You in?" I shrugged again, leaving that answer open to interpretation. "Okay then, pick you up on Saturday at ten. See you then." So apparently now shrugging means 'absolutely, I'm in.'

As a man who lives alone with his dog, you can tell I'm not exactly a 'social butterfly.' Some of the other miners try to be nice to me because now they're used to my solemn nature, but no one really seems able to reach me. I like to keep to myself. I always have and I always will.

I continued on my path to my mine cart when yet another miner stopped me. "Hey, Stan, listen to this." Before I could correct him and tell him that my name is Steve, not Stan, he dropped a boom box at my feet and started playing a strange track. It didn't even sound much like a song- in fact, it didn't sound anything like music in any way, shape or form- more like some tape someone had accidentally turned on while it was in their pocket.

"What's that?" I asked, leaning towards the radio and trying (unsuccessfully) to read the name of the record inside.

"It's 11, a new hit from C418." I just stared at him. "Yeah," he said sheepishly, "I don't get it either. It's supposed to have some sort of 'hidden story,' but I can't seem to make it out. I kind of think it stinks, to be honest." He picked up his boom box and something quickly which may or may not have been 'later,' and left. I still do not know his name, and apparently he doesn't know mine, either. I (finally) stepped into my mine cart and waited for someone to press the release button so I could get on with my life.


	3. Punchy

**Last week I got a review correcting an issue- bows can****not**** be enchanted. I realized this when I wrote the first chapter, but I wanted there to be something special about Steve's bow. I hope one of the post-release updates will include enchanted bows to make the story go along better. Thank you for pointing it out. On with Minecraft: Bowslinger now.**

"So how's that dog of yours?" The man who had spoken to me earlier (whose name was apparently John, but he goes by Punchy) asked as we drilled through layer after layer of cobblestone in the mine. "What's his name again?"

"Rufus," I replied friendly as I could muster. I never liked people asking me about my personal life. "And he's doing great."

"…Great, huh?" Punchy looked at me, as if trying to figure out some hidden code in my voice. Suddenly he got this 'aha' look on his face and his voice dropped to a gloomy tone. "I'm so sorry for your loss, Stan."

"What?" I paused briefly in my digging. Punchy looked at me as if I had creepers crawling out of my ears.

"Wait, didn't you say that your dog died?"

"No, I said he was _doing great._ How would that translate into _dead?_"

"You just looked so sad when you said it—"

"He's fine, thanks for asking, Punchy. So how's your dog?"

"Dead," he shrugged.

"That good, eh?" I poked. Punchy got this funny look on his face. "What? You can do that to me but can't do it back?" At that, the two of us cracked up. Punchy laughed so hard that he dropped his pickaxe and it landed with a loud _CLANG_ on the floor.

Wiping tears from his eyes, Punchy finally managed to catch his breath. "That stupid dog was eating me out of house and home. Never liked him much… He died by fire. Just one day, walking in the woods, we came across this weird looking lava pit, and he just sort of fell in." He sighed, picking his pick up again. "Don't get me wrong, I miss him. His name was Thor, because I was hoping being named after him would make my dog stronger. Guess not… I'm sorry, Stan, I'm just rambling on here. What's new with you?"

"It's Steve," I corrected, "and actually, I just built a new house down by Dead Man's Gorge. Want to come by some time?"

"Uh, sure thing, Steve… Is after work today good with you?" Punchy sounded hopeful, so I nodded.

And that's how I made my first friend in years, other than Rufus.

That afternoon, as soon as we were dismissed from the mineshaft, Punchy and I made our way straight to my house.

"Geez, Steve, your house is really far away from the mine," Punchy noted. "How on Earth do you get to work on time?"

"I wake up early and leave at sunrise. Rufus sometimes walks me to work, but I can't expect him always to- he has to stay home and control the monster situation."

"Like mobs?"

"Yeah, out here in the plain I get a lot of monsters during the day. I know in the city it's a bit different, there's so many people the mobs stay out of your way, but I think it's more than a fair trade."

"How?"

"Well… Out here, everything's first grabs. You find it, it's yours- no sharing like you have to do in town." I gestured at a mega tree half a chunk to the left of Punchy. "All of these trees are mine except that one; that one I leave to the forest, so if an animal needs shade or a safe place to sleep, they go there. They're welcome wherever they want to go, but they like it there."

"…Your forest, huh?"

"Yep." I smiled, proud of my forest.

"So monsters don't burn in the shade, do they?"

"No..."

"Let's hunt!" Before I could answer, Punchy had pulled out his diamond sword and sprinted into the forest, leaving me behind. I quickly drew my bow and ran behind Punchy, trying to keep pace.

"Dibs on the Enders!" I shouted at the top of my lungs, laughing. Punchy turned around and nodded with the most ridiculous grin on his face.

"You find 'em, they're yours!" he exclaimed back at me, and the two of us spent hours hunting, just the two of us, having the time of our lives.

That night, we finally arrived at my house, still laughing and joking about the highlights of the trip. Rufus was out in the front yard, barking at us as if looking for help, and the smile quickly melted off of my face.

"What's wrong, boy?" I asked quietly, getting on one knee and scratching Rufus behind the ears. He whimpered and scratched at the door in his way of asking me to let him in. When I did, he went straight to the middle of the room, and nosed at something sitting on the carpet.

A book.

_The book._

"…Punchy, I'm sorry, can I make you a bed in the guest house? This is- this is kind of…" Punchy nodded at me.

"Just give me some wood and a bed and I'll make it myself. This looks urgent, so I'll just leave you to it." With that, Punchy pulled several items from my storage chest and went outside, leaving me and Rufus to look through the book…

On page 350, I found something that sent a chill down my spine:

_May the hellish fiends surround you, feast on you, leave you crying for mercy; they will feed on your shrieks and leave you alive merely to continue hearing them._

_-Herobrine_


	4. Literature

My hands shook uncontrollably. The book slipped from my fingers, hitting the floor with an audible _SLAM._ When I finally brought myself to open my eyes, I stared down at the dusty, brownish cover, which glared back up at me coldly as if _I_ was the one who invaded _its_ home.I snatched it back up from the floor and shoved it on a shelf, hoping I could bring myself to forget it, but it was burning a hole in my mind- the fact alone that an Alchemy book would appear (as if magically) in my house was preposterous… But this wasn't just any alchemy book. It was the cursed alchemy book from my dream.

The dream I had just the night before.

_The dream where I died._

Everywhere I looked, things became blurred. Rufus began to whimper, distressed, as I crumpled to the floor. I didn't feel the impact.

Soft rays of sunlight streamed through the window on my face, and I felt something warm and damp hit my cheek. I opened my eyes to see a concerned Rufus licking my face.

"Vigil," I heard someone say. "Rufus got me when you passed out. It's been boring as heck waiting." I smiled weakly when my eyes focused and I realized the voice was coming from Punchy, who was sitting on the storage chest adjacent to the door.

"I can imagine."

"This guy's been diligent, though." Punchy nodded in Rufus's direction, who wagged his tail at the attention. "It's like a Creeper watching its prey. Almost scary how focused the guy was."

"Good to hear," I chuckled, scratching Rufus behind his ears. Before I knew it, the dog was on my chest and lapping contently at my face. Though I usually would have groaned and pushed him away, I laughed and let him be.

"So what's up with that book?" Punchy slyly gazed at the bookshelf out of the corner of his eye. I followed his gaze and saw the book again- and things began to blur again.

"_For the love of Notch, would you quit doing that?"_ Punchy exclaimed, shaking me awake before I was even fully unconscious. "Just tell me what's with that book!"

"Just… I don't know, alchemy stuff," I mumbled. My good spirit from before had completely vanished.

"Can I read it?" Punchy began to reach for the book.

"NO!" I jolted up from the floor and snatched his hand away. "I mean… Uh… You probably shouldn't." I let go of his wrist and he gave me this quizzical look. Then, out of nowhere, a smile spread on his face.

"Oh… So it's THAT kind of book, is it?"

"…What kind of book?"

"Witchcraft!" He looked proud, as if he had uncovered some insane secret. "You almost had me convinced that it was just basic alchemy! Aha, well, if it's witchcraft, then you have nothing to worry a-"

"I swear it's just alchemy." I knocked his hand away from the book again, which scored me another confused look. "Now, please don't touch it. Or read it. Or look at it. Or think about it. In fact, pretend the book never existed. That's just another book, it doesn't matter and never will. End. Of. Story."

Punchy looked at me suspiciously. "What's your deal? I'm not going to steal it or anything."

"It's a safety issue. Alchemy can be extremely dangerous," I replied quickly. It wasn't entirely a lie; Alchemy is dangerous. And the book was not safe. I saw no reason to mess around with it and get everyone killed.

"Good point," he sighed, throwing himself on the bed. "It's just easy to get bored out here. Whatever. Want to go hunt?"

"Not really," I answered. "I have some boats tied up out in the river. Shall we fish?"

_Plop._ Punchy threw a line out in the water, almost immediately summoning in another fish to have for lunch. I stared at my line, which had not moved once since I cast it an hour ago. I gazed back at his fishing rod, and when he noticed, he turned to me and smirked.

"How can I help you?" he laughed.

"Punchy," I sighed, "how the heck do you do that?"

"Easy," he replied calmly, dragging another unwilling fish out of the water and showing me the bobber. A little pink lump sat on the end of the hook. "Fish. Love. Fish."

"Wait, is that it? You just put a little fish on the hook and they come?"

"Pretty much… But it helps that I'm shockingly handsome."

"You wish, bozo. Shave the feet sometime, they're scaring away the zombies."

"Nice comeback. Tell it to the fish sometime."

I rolled my eyes, reeled in my line, put some meat on the end, and cast it again, pulling in a fish within seconds.

I sure hope Rufus wants tuna for dinner.


	5. Arrival

_Hiss….._

The sound startled me at first- when you're half asleep, it sounds just like a creeper standing over your shoulder. I leapt from my chair (which I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep in) and searched for the source of the sound.

It was the fish in the furnace. Dinner was ready, and Punchy had left.

"Rufus!" I called. He trotted over to my heel and sat patiently as I set up the dinner. When I set it on the floor in front of him, he sniffed it uncertainly. "What?" I asked after a short pause. "It's meat. I thought you love meat." Rufus looked up at me and cocked his head, as if he were saying 'are you kidding me?'

"Come on, it's fish. It's sort of a meat," I sighed. He didn't respond. "I'm sorry, but Punchy and I caught a huge load of fish today. If we eat the fish now, we'll have the good stuff for later." Rufus finally (and reluctantly) bent over the fish and started chewing on it distastefully. "Thanks, boy. Don't worry; I'm not going fishing again for a while."

_Plop._

I cast the line again and set the fish down in the chest I'd installed in the boat.

"So your dog seriously doesn't like fish?" Punchy yanked the fishing pole, dragging an unlucky fish out of the water. "Now that's just weird."

"Yeah, but I guess I can't blame him. I've only given him bones and pork chops his entire life- fish would be a pretty big adjustment for a dog like him."

"Mm-hmm, sure of course."

"Dude, did you hear what I just said?"

"Yeah uh-huh always." His eyes had just glossed over as if he had suddenly stopped paying attention.

"Dude!" I hit him on the shoulder. Punchy turned towards me slightly, when I realized that his eyes weren't just glossed over from lack of focus- they were actually glossed over in an eerie white color. "Ah!" I threw myself to the other end of the boat, as far as I could from Punchy. He shook in place as if he were having a seizure.

"Punchy?" I inched over even further- I was only halfway in the raft, and the other half over the water. The grotesque creature that was once Punchy began to shift forward- his eyes glowed ominously, and a loud shrieking sound came from inside him.

Just when I was about to leap into the water, the sound stopped, and I heard Punchy's voice scream "NO!" His eyes stopped glowing and slowly faded back into their normal color, and he stopped thrashing. For a second Punchy didn't move; suddenly, he gasped and coughed weakly for air. I rushed to his side.

"You okay, Punchy?" His crumpled figure was limp against the floor, barely moving to draw in a breath. I quickly paddled us to shore and took him to safety.

"What's that… Smell?" Punchy weakly whispered from the chair.

"It's called fish, hypocrite," I joked at him. Frankly, I didn't care that he said my cooking stank, just as long as he was alive. "What happened?"

"Y-you tell me," he said only slightly louder. "You were the conscious one."

"Um… You shook, and your eyes glowed, and you screamed, and then you screamed normally, and then you passed out," I ticked the things off on my fingers, "so does any of this sound familiar?"

"Uggggh…" Punchy turned over on his side and coughed. "Yes…"

"What was it?" After only a brief moment of him not responding, I knew what it was. I quickly turned around and sprinted to the other end of the room, looking at the bookshelf. The book was gone. I was horrified. "Where is it?" I whispered under my breath. "Where'd you put the book?"

"I swear I didn't take it, Steve," he sputtered. "I just read this one little part, and then it just sort of… Vanished. I didn't even see what happened- just a flash of black."

"I. Told. You. NOT to read it!" My voice raised in fury to be so loud that Rufus ran and cowered in the corner. "I said it was _dangerous!_ I warned you! I specifically told you to _forget it even existed!_ And what do you do?" Punchy shrank back in the chair, looking even more scared than the dog. _"You don't have any idea what's going to happen to us!_ We're all going to die!" I glanced back at Rufus, who looked not only scared at how angry I was, but horrified at my screaming. I gathered myself. "I'm so sorry, Punchy, but I'm just going to have to ask you from now on to respect my personal proper-"

"Okay-" Punchy's voice was squeaky. he cleared his throat. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, dude. Please forgive me."

"For now," The words were in a less-intimidating tone than I was going for. "But when we're all dead…" I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence. For lack of anything to say, I turned on my heels, left the house, and slammed the door behind me.


	6. Sparklez

"I'm going to be honest here… When you said we were dead, I was sure the ultimate apocalypse was coming," Punchy said with only a brief glance up from his digging. We were back at work a few days after the Herobrine incident and, other than cleaning up after some fish disagreed with Rufus, nothing too terrible had happened.

"It's not too late to die, Punchy," I whispered to him. After a pause, I added, "How long has it been since you've… You know…"

"Probably… Yeah, last time was over at your house. Nothing's happened since then," he said back. Ever since I saw him that way- as the Herobrine- his eyes had seemed a little bit brighter, like he was still carrying demons with him. Some things can't just be forgotten, apparently.

In the distance, I heard an explosion, followed by a gust of particle dust shooting down Punchy's and my cave. We shielded our eyes as the dust passed, then sprinted madly to where the explosion came from. Miscellaneous tools and such were lying all over the floor. It wasn't hard to take death count. The only survivor, a man in a black-and-white suit and glasses, lays sprawled on the floor.

I rushed to him and supported his head, searching my inventory for food. "Are you okay? How's your health?"

"Half a heart left…" He feebly reached for the cooked fish I give him.

"Don't die!" Punchy exclaimed from across the room where he was retrieving the dropped items, probably searching for identification for the funerals. When the man's head droops again, Punchy looks up, concerned, and again whispers "don't die."

"No… No, I'm okay… Thanks for the fish," the man said as he attempted to stand. I helped him up. "Are you healing?"

"No, but really- we shouldn't hang around here. There were creepers in there. Let's go up and…" He choked up. I saw a tear roll out from under his glasses.

Punchy tossed him another fish, which he snarfed down without protest. "You sure you're okay, man?" The man wiped his face and nodded. "What exactly happened to cause the explosion?"

"Creepers. A dozen of them. The team and I held them off for a while, but… There were so many of them, and I couldn't save anyone but myself."

"I'm sure they're all glad you're here to make sure they're remembered and stuff," I said, trying to make him feel better. He and Punchy gave me quizzical looks. "What I was trying to say was, if you were dead, too, then you'd all be forgotten. I mean- I—Never mind."

Punchy, the man (who I learned they call 'Sparklez' because of his talent of finding rare ore), and I made our way up to the surface where some other miners helped us patch Sparklez up. He was back to one hundred percent before lunch. I decided to stay and eat lunch with him, knowing that he had probably planned to eat with his team. When the bell rang for us to eat, I handed him yet another cooked fish and my last piece of bread. He ate slowly, burdened, guilty.

"It's okay to survive bad stuff," I said , trying to be reassuring. "You know. If you'd been one of those who died, would you want everyone to die? Or would you rather have someone survive to carry on your memory?"

"It didn't have to be me."

"Well, you know you're our best miner, right? Or they wouldn't call you Sparklez. They'd call you… Um…" I tried to think of something funny to say, but came up, as usual, with nothing.

"You know it should have been Swift. He tried to sacrifice himself to save all of us."

"He knew you'd bring us things of value, protecting our people on a financial level," I replied, suddenly able to complete a sentence.

"Or Captain. He mines faster than I do. Digging in a straight line long enough will achieve more than wasting time searching for it. And he could fight." I realized then that Sparklez was hardly listening to a word I said. He was staring at a fixed point in the table in an almost dreamlike way. "And Andrew… 'You can do it, Sparklez. Just practice…' I didn't practice enough. I'm sorry, Andrew."

"Sparklez?" I touched his shoulder briefly. He jolted out of his trance. "Hey. They knew what they were doing. It wasn't like they expected you to live or die. They just knew to… You know this. You know what I'm trying to say, don't you." It wasn't a question.

"They… But I shouldn't have to deal with this! I didn't come to work today to be some survivor who watched his friends die and did nothing. I came to work so I could work, and now that's too much to ask." He crossed his arms indignantly. If he was permitted to walk, he would have stormed away right then.

"No one wants to be the hero."

Sparklez nodded. "No one should have to be the hero. Do you want to be a hero, Steve? Do you want to wake up one day, let your friends die, and come out as some sort of relic?"

I didn't respond.


	7. Haunted

"Hey, Andrew," a voice called from far away. I was staring at absolute darkness, and from the ambient noise I assumed that I was in the mine. "Come look at this!"

"What is it?" another voice replied as footsteps reverberate down the tunnel.

"It's some sort of ravine. But look! Down there!"

After a pause, a third voice that I recognized to be Sparklez's exclaims excitedly, "Diamonds! Who would've-" A hiss cut him off. There was shuffling, shouting, and the occasional explosion to be heard, then after one final _boom!_, there was absolute silence, excepting some quiet groans and wheezes for air. I turned around and saw that I was, in fact, in the mine, staring at the wall. I coolly strode towards the group of miners and spent a brief second watching them wallow in their own pain. I step on the first one's chest- Andrew's- who had been futilely trying to climb to his feet. His eyes widened in fear, stared up at me, then glowed a brilliant white before they finally closed for good. I did the same for two others, but paused at the last one.

Sparklez.

I bent to his level, so close that I could smell his sweat. He was unconscious, which was disappointing for some reason. I opened his eyes and willed them to glow like the others, but when the light faded from his eyes, they didn't shut. There was a pulling sensation on my entirety, and when it faded I was looking through Sparklez's eyes instead of my own. For a brief second, I- Sparklez- look up and see a shady, mysterious figure looming over me, but then he explodes into dust.

Sparklez, who hadn't been permitted to mine but still dutifully showed up every day, sat in his usual; position at the lunch area. I saw him on my way into the mine- tunnel Delta- and remembered his limp figure with the glowing eyes. The picture haunted me.

"Punchy," I said quietly as we ventured down the new cave, "did I seem at all 'off' to you the day of the explosion?"

"You seemed the most upset about it if that's what you mean. Save Sparklez, of course."

"No, before that. No weird actions or language or anything else?"

"Well, I can't say 'before' only, but you weren't talking Steve-nese much." He shouldered his pickaxe and smirked. "And you ask, why?"

"Nothing, it's nothing," I replied with an attempt to smirk back. Frankly, I thought both of us were getting sick of talking about Herobrine so much. "Paranoid as usual, am I right? So, on the subject…"

"Here we go again," he said with an eye roll.

"I just wanted to ask if you've been possessed lately."

"Nope, nope, nope. I'm beginning to think that maybe it was just a seizure. Makes sense, right?"

"Yeah, that makes sense," I lied. He didn't seem like the type to suddenly get seizures, especially at such a convenient time.

Later at lunch, I walked over and sat by Sparklez. He acknowledged my presence with a nod. I had a theory to test today, and I fully intended to test it. I waved Punchy over and the three of us sat on the ground with our food.

"So," I began, pretending to be uncaring as I spoke, "do you guys want to go fishing tonight?"

"As if we don't have enough already," Punchy joked.

"Really, Punchy," I shot back under my breath, "we need to be friends with this guy." He nodded and rolled his eyes at my weird manners. "Anyway, I was thinking we could hang out, catch some fish, maybe hunt a bit- you know," I said back at normal volume.

"Sure," Sparklez replied a bit too quickly. I looked at him- he was definitely playing nonchalant, but that could just be because he hadn't been with friends since the explosion and was eager to get back to it. Punchy, as always, nodded his assent.

"Great. Walk home with me after work. I'll be ready."


	8. Descent

I had a simple sword with me. It was made of wood, but it was all I could afford at the time. Punchy, Sparklez, and I were walking to my house after work and I was cautious to make sure neither of them saw it. I realized I would have looked mad if anyone else saw me- my eyes darting everywhere, paranoid that every step deeper into the woods would be my last, all the while keeping a hidden long sword concealed from my friend and a stranger, both of whom I'd invited. If I died, it was entirely my fault. Accepting that was the easy part of the quest.

I turned us around the wrong tree for the third time, hoping that even if I didn't make it out, Herobrine wouldn't be able to find Rufus. A diminishing hope with every second Sparklez didn't attack me.

"Okay, okay. What the heck is up, Steve?" Punchy stopped in his tracks and crossed his arms, staring at me expectantly.

"What?" I asked innocently.

"We've been around this place at least twice already. I recognize that tree we just passed."

"I got a little lost- I think I see where we are now," I quickly explained. I still didn't intend to take them to my house.

"I remember the way and I don't even live there! Here, it's this way," he said, pointing and walking in the correct direction. I tried not to wince as Sparklez followed. Only a few minutes passed before Punchy had led us into the clearing with my house in the middle of it. I followed him into it reluctantly. I had invited Punchy because it would look weird inviting a guy I don't know fishing and ignoring a guy I did; it hadn't occurred to me that Punchy could hinder my progress.

When we got inside, Punchy reached into my chest and pulled out two fishing rods and the ingredients to craft a third. He handed the ingredients to Sparklez, who went to the other side of the room to make it.

"Punchy!" I hissed, punching his arm as hard as I could justify.

"Ow! What?" He rubbed his shoulder sorely.

"He wasn't supposed to come to my house! I think he's-"

"Got it, guys!" Sparklez interrupted, turning away from the crafting table and holding up the new fishing rod. "Ready to go?"

On the boat (which creaked with every breath under the weight of three,) we each cast our lines repeatedly. Rufus, who refused to wait at home this time, waited just beside the lake. The sun was threatening to dip below the horizon when Punchy finally yawned and signaled the end of our fishing trip.

"That wasn't a bad day," I said casually. "I got twenty fish- and you, Punchy?"

"Twenty-two." He sighed tiredly. "I've done worse."

"I got… Eight." Sparklez sighed as Punchy and I muffled our laughter. "I'm new!" We continued snickering and packed up the supplies, parked the boat, and walked the forest. I whistled for Rufus and he trotted by my side.

"We have to do that again!" Sparklez said, finally able to laugh at himself as he stumbled around in the dark.

"Next time, bring torches," Punchy said, irritated. I heard him bump into a tree and laughed.

"It is pretty dark, isn't it?" I replied between chuckles. Suddenly, a light came from behind me and made the path visible again. "Thanks, Sparklez. So you brought tor-" I turned to look him in the eye and saw that it was _him_ making the light. His eyes were glowing- no, _shining_- the dangerous-looking white beams that illuminated the path.

The light washed over me and I suddenly felt numb all over, struggling to move. Punchy turned to see why I cut off my sentence and he froze in the light, too- as did Rufus, who was in mid-leap at Sparklez when the light cut him off and he crashed to the ground. That was the last thing I saw before the light faded, my eyes lost focus, and the world faded to black.


	9. Games

Pain shot up my leg. It felt like I'd dipped my foot in lava. The pain spread all the way up my stomach, then my chest, then washed all the way up to my eyes. I immediately felt the ability to open them come back, so I did. What I saw was horror.

We were in a large sphere of at least one hundred blocks' diameter. It was made of mossy bricks, and looked as if someone had cracked open a stronghold and dumped its contents into a jar- it was riddled with monsters, spawners, and the occasional chest. On one end I saw what looked to be an exit, but in between it and me were at least a hundred very angry mobs.

Out of the corner of my eye- I had some sort of restraint on so I couldn't turn my head- Punchy and Rufus stood next to me, both just as conscious- and immobile. We were on some sort of platform about fifty blocks above the very bottom of the sphere.

"Welcome, vermin," a demonic voice from the Nether itself hissed in my ears. It reverberated off the walls, echoing in a somehow eerie way. "Are you ready to be heroes?"

That last part seemed directed at me, somehow. I realized that it was Herobrine who I'd talked to about heroism, not Sparklez. That would explain how he knew my name at the time- supposedly, the Herobrine knew everything.

"This is my… Playground. It's a beautiful place, vermin. You can End it all here," he said in an entirely cold voice. "You can play with me. Consider yourself free to play… But play nice." My restraints lifted themselves and dumped me on the stone below me. I felt around for a while- for anything to defend myself- but found nothing. There was a faint glow from behind me, and when I reached behind me I felt the familiar bend of my bow. I pulled it out of its 'holster' and, holding it in front of me, I saw the familiar blue-pink glow of its enchantments- Infinity, Flame, and Punch.

When I was young and new to Minecraft, bows were still a fairly new invention. People boasted their archery skills, measuring talent in kills. I had spent days gathering the materials to make one and, when the day came that I had everything I needed, I had tediously pieced it together, bit by bit, until it was perfect. Years later, people had discovered enchantments, and I spent days gathering all of the experience I needed to get the perfect enchantments. There was a community enchanter a few chunks from the cave I lived in at the time, so I used that. Green orbs swirled out of my hands, drawn to the bow like a magnet. It absorbed the orbs and, for only a second, I could see its enchantments- Infinity, Flame, and Punch. Beautiful.

I closed my eyes and tried to recapture the beauty of the moment when I first saw my perfect bow, but the joy wouldn't come. All I could feel was the horror of the moment I was in. I opened my eyes, looked to my right, and saw Punchy, who was admiring a diamond sword he had just drawn.

"What's that?" I asked, interrupting the silence. He paused and looked at me as if he just realized I was there.

"This is Excalibur," he said with a hint of a grin. "The best sword in the world. Made of diamonds, obviously, and enchanted. Knockback, Flame, and Strength." I leaned to get a better look. It was truly a magnificent sword, hilt sparkling even in the dark. The blade itself was about two feet long, so sharp that even looking at it hurt. "I lost her in a volcano a few weeks ago. It was heartbreaking- I thought I'd never see her again." He looked up and grimaced. "Given the circumstances, I would prefer the alternative. Hey, what's that your dog has?"

I looked over at Rufus who had something shiny in his mouth that he kept turning in his jaws. I leaned closer and saw that it was an arrow. He offered it to me and I took it, knowing that it would be key to survival with my Infinity bow. "Thanks, boy. Remember, you don't have to wait for my mark- if you see a monster and you could survive fighting it… Kill it." He quietly woofed back his assent.

"So, do you want to make a plan?" I said, turning to Punchy. "We can't stay up here forever, we'll starve."

"Let me think… This looks like the only safe place in the entire… Everything, actually. I think there's a ladder, so once we go down we can come back up." Punchy said. "Does Rufus have trouble with ladders?"

"If I go up before him, he should be fine," I replied.

"Good. We go down, kill some zombies- oh, Notch." He peered over the edge, scanning the area. "I don't see any pigs."

"Zombies can only feed people," I said numbly. If we didn't have food for Rufus, we were just buying time. He was bound to get hurt eventually. "Rufus, I want you to stay here and Punchy and I will go down. Hold off any monsters. We'll be back-" Rufus jumped on me and barked sternly. I understood what he was saying. "No, Rufus, you have to stay here! If you get hurt, I _can't save you._ Are you hearing me?" He barked again. I saw that there was no convincing him. "Fine. But… Please be careful, Rufus. Please."

"Um… Steve?" Punchy said when Rufus climbed down on all fours again. "We're going to need the food. Quick." I nodded, pulled the string on my bow taut, and looked over the edge of the platform. From so far away there was no guaranteeing that I would hit something, but I shot anyway. I watched as a skeleton caught fire and dropped dead, arrows and bones flying askew. With a sigh of relief, I shot again, this time catching a zombie- then another zombie- then a skeleton.

"I thinned out a few right by the ladder. Are you ready?"

"No," Punchy said with a sigh. "Are you?"

"No." How could anyone be ready in a situation like this? "Let's go."


	10. Fallback

The three of us quickly came up with a basic formation; Punchy in front with Rufus rear-left and me rear-right. With Excalibur lighting the way, we slowly made our way to one of the nearest 'corners' of the map, knocking out monster after monster on the way.

"You have to be kidding! We can't hold out from here, we'll be _swarmed!_" I whispered to Punchy angrily.

"Hear me out- we don't have to stay here, we just use it as a fallback position. If we get overrun at the other outpost, we can regroup here and flank from starboard." He looked at me for a second. I blanked out and he knew it. "Okay, so if the platform up there gets swarmed too much and we just so happen to get away, then we come here and attack the swarm from the right. Get it?"

"That is… I don't want to be rude, but that's the worst idea ever. Of all time. Monsters don't attack in 'swarms,' they all work individually, and unintelligently at that. And when you say 'right,' is it your right or my right?"

"I meant north," he said, embarassed at the flaws in his plan.

"Which way is north, then?" I instinctively looked up to where the sun should be. The stone made it impossible to tell which way was which at all.

"Let's say… That way." He pointed to the exit. It somehow looked even smaller and farther away than when we were on the platform.

"So we know which way is north. Great. But the rest of your plan is still… You know, not… Good. Sorry, but I think that we should have a better Plan B than one that will get us slaughtered." I looked up at the platform and sighed. It was the only place in the entire room that wasn't entirely impossible to survive on, but at the same time a few determined spiders could drive us out easily enough. It was possible- _possible-_ that we could need a fallback.

"At least you put it nicely," he replied sarcastically. "But you're right. I don't see anywhere-" an arrow flew by his ear, slapping a rock in front of him loudly. We whipped around and readied our weapons, but Rufus tackled the skeleton and ripped its skull away before either of us could land a single blow.

"Nice shot!" I laughed, and Rufus wagged his tail in response. Punchy and I relaxed our weapons.

It was a mistake.

The sound of clanking bones suddenly pounded in my ears and I knew we were surrounded. I backed up and ran into Punchy. Good. Fighting back-to-back like that would keep skeletons from shooting us from behind. I held my bow up again, quickly shooting down three skeletons in front of me. Five more skeletons took their places.

"Ah!" I cried. An arrow had caught me in the shoulder and blood was quickly seeping into my shirt. I clenched my teeth and tried to ignore the pain and I strung another arrow and shot another monster down. The limited arm movement slowed me down, but I still hoped I could slow them down enough to escape. I felt another arrow brush my knee, nicking the fabric. It might have hit Punchy, but I couldn't worry about that.

Two more down. Rufus was barely keeping up, now limping from where one of them kicked him in the ribs.

"We can't do this!" Punchy shouted over his shoulder. "We need to run for it or die!"

"Okay, you go first and I'll hold them off. I'll be right behind you!" I poised my bow to clear the way to our platform and Punchy sprinted towards it, mowing down skeleton after skeleton in his way. As soon as he was at the ladder, I grabbed Rufus in my uninjured arm and chased after him. He was already halfway up the ladder when Rufus and I started climbing.

Suddenly, as if in slow motion, I watched a single arrow shoot through the air and impact in Punchy's side. It didn't look fatal, but he cried in pain and dropped from the ladder. He fell, went right past me, and landed on the floor at the feet of a dozen waiting skeletons.


	11. Strength

"No! Punchy!" I hefted Rufus over my shoulder and tried to hook his paw through the ladder rungs. Pain shot through the entire left side of my body. A scream of pain escaped my lungs, but I somehow managed to keep my grip. All I had was my bow, but using that and hanging onto the ladder was nearly impossible.

I finally made up my mind- I jumped down from the ladder into the midst of the monsters and made a fist around one of the arrows I'd inadvertently picked up from a skeleton corpse. Through the eye socket of the nearest one I thrust the arrow. It flapped its jaw as if it was trying to scream. Throwing it to the floor, I moved to the next skeleton.

"Grr… AHH!" I wedged the arrow in between its neck and its skull, separating them with little struggle. Punchy was in the dirt directly behind it. I knelt next to him and shook his shoulders. "Punchy, are you awake? Punchy!" There was movement under his eyelids. He was too heavy to heft up the ladder, so unless he woke up- we were both dead.

"Nether wart…" Punchy murmured.

"What's that?" As I said it I killed another skeleton by splitting its spine with the arrow.

"Blaze powder… Blaze… pow…"

"Punchy, if you're awake, I need you to-"

"Strength!" Punchy exclaimed, his eyes flying open and staring at something behind me. I turned and saw a bottle with bubbling bloodred liquid in it flying at my face. It slammed into me before I could duck out of its way. The glass shatteredinto a cloud of dust around me and the liquid bubbled over me. It evaporated into small clouds as soon as it made contact with skin.

Suddenly I felt strength pulsing through my veins. Without thinking twice I hefted Punchy, who had drifted back into unconsciousness, over my shoulder and bounded up the ladder, grabbing Rufus as I went. We were safely atop the platform before I knew it. I peered over the ledge and saw the swarms of skeletons still brewing below. There were at least a hundred of them, milling around aimlessly now that their food was out of reach. Satisfied, I leaned back in and collapsed on my back, exhausted.

"Punchy? Can you hear me?" My voice sounded so exhausted that I could barely recognize it as my own. It was too raspy. I didn't like it.

When Punchy still hadn't responded after a few moments, I pulled myself up to my knees and dragged myself over to where he was laying. He was barely breathing. How are you supposed to fix that? If someone can't breathe, you give them food. One of many things we didn't have. I bent over him, trying to think of something to do. I would dress the wound if I had the materials to, a bandage or something, but…

Cloth! I ripped a strip of cloth off of my shirt, still damp from the strange liquid, and used it to clean some of the blood off of his ribs. The second it touched him all of the dampness soaked out of it and into his skin. His eyes opened again. This time they stayed open as he coughed and gasped for air, eventually sputtering out enough fluid to right himself.

"Thank Notch, you're alive." I finally managed to heave the sigh of relief I'd been holding in since the skeletons attacked. "So, by any chance do you know what the heck just happened?"


	12. Trivial

"Ew… Ew… Ew… Ew…" With every bite Punchy took, he quietly repeated the same noise over and over. "Ew… Ew… Ew…"

I swallowed as hard as I could, shoving a clump of the slimy stuff to the back of my throat. Living off of zombie flesh was nearly impossible, and I had a feeling that it was the only food I would ever eat again. My stomach immediately started growling angrily and hurting. I recognized the feeling. Before it could poison me too much, I leaned over the edge of the platform and coughed it up.

"And there goes yet another piece of valuable food," I groaned, wiping my mouth with disgust. I was definitely spoiled to my fine gourmet pork chops and steaks that I was used to. I reached into our food pile and grabbed another piece of the sickening stuff, ran it over the edge of the stone a few times to purge it of some of the slime, and swallowed it the same way. That one, luckily, didn't hurt me.

"Ew… Ew… For the love of- poisoned again!" Punchy leaned over the edge of the platform and did the same thing I did. I looked away.

"Just out of curiosity, do you know how they get embalmed corpses to walk around again?"

"They- supposedly- aren't people. They're another species entirely with embalming fluids for blood. It's still gross to think about," Punchy said, returning to the 'ew… ew… ew' act again with another piece of flesh.

Over the time we'd been there, I realized that Punchy was basically a walking and talking book. He knew where everything came from, when, and why. Except the potion the other day. When I described what happened to him when he came to, he said it was probably a Splash potion of Strength, but we couldn't figure out why Herobrine would have given it to me. I said that it could be to keep us alive longer, but Punchy said that wouldn't make sense, considering that death by skeleton was thought to be one of the most agonizing ways to go- they did it slowly, trying to salvage the bones while you were still alive. It was the most disgusting thing I ever heard.

"Since all week you've been giving me history lessons, can I say something?"

"No, Steve. Never speak again," Punchy joked.

"Where do Endermen come from?"

"Well," he said, leaning back in thought, "some people say they evolved from a primitive form of Creepers- you know, those weird bugs they say were everywhere- but something doesn't really add up. They teleport, but Creepers don't. Doesn't that seem like an adaptation they would keep over time? And Endermen also adapt to their environments much more quickly than Creepers. My answer is, I just don't know." After a pause, he added, "I should have said 'when a mommy Ender and a daddy Ender love each other very-'"

"I know we don't really have the time to sit around and be philosophers, but I have an idea."

"Shoot."

"Well, you know how sometimes you're fighting an Endermen and they teleport and, suddenly, they're nowhere to be seen? Maybe they go somewhere. Like where they came from. And they teleport from _there_ to get _here_ as well. Maybe they didn't really 'evolve' into what they are, but just sort of… you know… appeared.

"Appeared? That doesn't seem right. They had to evolve from _something-_ remember how they used to all have green eyes? Well, now they're all purple because over time natural selection proved that purple eyes could see better outside."

"Well, thanks for listening anyway. You know, I'm getting tired of being the dumb one here. If you ever trip, feel free to land on your head," I mumbled back. I was serious about always being wrong, but if Punchy got hurt I would be done for as well.

"Like you?" Punchy shot back. I shrugged and rolled my eyes at him.

Over in the corner, Rufus was laying down. His ears were laid back and his tail brushed the floor with exhaustion. I knew that he was within inches of his life, and I would do everything in my power to make him stay there the next day. It was my fault that we were all there, so I was determined to do everything in my power to make sure they both got out alive… Whether or not I did with them.


	13. Food

"Rufus, I swear to Notch, I am not letting you down that ladder!" I was trying to will him to obey, but if I knew one thing about Rufus, it was that he was the willful one. I stood in between him and the ladder, gently holding him away with my foot. "We don't have any pork chops. You will _die_ if you go down there, and I already vowed that I'm not letting that happen. Got it?"

"Uh, Steve? You might want to see this," Puchy said from across the platform, distracting me momentarily from Rufus, who seized the chance and put his back feet on the top rung of the ladder.

"What?" I responded, irritated.

"Just look- down there, not even two blocks away from the ladder." I glanced over the edge of the platform to where Punchy's finger led and saw half a dozen of them pacing around nervously.

I took in every detail. Half of their faces were composed of green, decaying flesh that peeled and cracked on the edges. Fleshy ribs showed through their chests like giant, sideways teeth. What wasn't decaying or already decayed of their bodies was light pink. Zombie pigmen. The gates of heaven.

"Okay, Rufus, new plan. You stay here _for now_ while Punchy and I get some food. Sit by the torch and try to rest a bit, we'll be back soon." Even though he still wanted to go, the dog's exhaustion finally took over and he obeyed. As soon as he was laying down, I sighed with relief and got into my regular prone sniper position along the 'north' side of the platform. I only managed to kill one of the pigmen- who, to my joy, dropped a cooked porkchop where he was standing- before all of them angrily oinked and growled, scrambling around in search of the murderer. Bloodied teeth flashed left and right, golden swords thrashing every which way in fury. "I have their attention. Go get that porkchop while you can, Punchy." He nodded and slid down the ladder, sprinted to the porkchop, and ran back before the confusion led to him. When he was up, I shot another between the eyes and it dropped another porkchop. I tried shooting a few more, but they were running around so wildly it was hard to get a good shot and I ended up only getting two more. The remaining two ran away, swinging at each other. Two possible porkchops just ran away. "Can you get those, too?" Punchy again nodded and retrieved the porkchops in a matter of seconds. I walked over to Rufus and woke him up quietly. When he saw the porkchops he wagged his tail feebly, slowly and weakly eating them until he was full.

"I don't care why, I don't care how, I'm just glad we got you some food," Punchy whispered, leaning over Rufus and wiping his own forehead. Rufus reached up and licked Punchy's nose happily. He held his tail high for the first time in days. Punchy looked down at one of the porkchops longingly. "Since there are leftovers-"

"No." I snatched the porkchop out of his hand and shoved it in my inventory for safety. "But since you're hungry, there's bound to be some zombies around here. I know how much you love their tasty gourmet. I can just hear them decaying- 'Oh, Punchy's going to LOVE that arm of yours! Al dente!"

"Yum… Uh, this is going to sound weird, but can we kill some spiders today instead?" He replied, scratching the back of his head.

"Sure, but why?"

"Well, sometimes spiders have eyes that you can harvest and eat. They're really spicy- supposedly the spiciest thing in the world- but they won't poison you. I just want to try it."

"Sounds… Painful. Sure, whatever, let's do that. Even better than flesh, right?"

"Not dropped as often. Spiders have edible eyes about as often as you see zombies walking around with tools. Maybe we can get both?"

"Okay." I looked around the sphere. "Spiders, spiders- over there! I think I see a spider spawner… Yep, definitely a spider spawner. Let's check all those chests on the way and see if there's a pickaxe somewhere so we can rig a trap, that would make it much easier and safer. Ready to run for it?"

"Oh, heck yeah!" Punchy pumped a fist happily. I blinked at the uncharacteristic gesture. He froze and adjusted. "Let's just go."


	14. Delicious

"Could you check that chest?" I elbowed Punchy and gestured to the ground by his foot. He rummaged through it a bit, pulling out three iron ingots and a few pieces of bread.

"It's like Christmas!" He cheered, holding the bread up to his face and inhaling deeply. "Ahhh, that's good stuff."

"Put that bread away and focus for once!" I reached for the bread and he pulled it away defensively. "We're about a chunk away from the spawner I was talking about. It's that way, but you probably can't see it with the fog the way it is," I added, trying to get him to concentrate again. I could tell the thought of real food was driving him insane. The skin around his mouth was burned red from all of the poison he'd injested, and he lived in the city before this happened, so he'd spent his entire life eating cooked food. In a pinch, I was used to eating it raw, which had suprisingly trained me to not taste what I was eating in a good way. Even with that, zombie flesh was hard to stand. How did it taste to Punchy?

"Three iron isn't as good as a pickaxe, but we might be able to craft one with that wood we got in the chest back there," he said, putting the bread away. We had three blocks of regular wood. I would turn two of them into planks, then use two of the planks for sticks, then use two of those for a pickaxe. The last piece of raw wood I would smelt into charcoal for torches so the area around the platform wouldn't be so hazardous. To do that, I would have to use four wood planks to make a crafting table, leaving only one wood plank left. I had all of the recipes tatooed into my mind.

"I always took crafting tables for granted before this," I sighed, wistfully thinking of the uses of the wood we were using on it. Instead of allowing myself to sit and feel sorry for myself, I pushed on, picking up the chest we just looted for use later. "Come on, I think it's just around this trap here. Can you make a table?"

"WILCO," he replied, dropping a crafting table at his feet and quickly conjuring up a simple pickaxe. With it, he pulled a few blocks off of the wall we were standing next to, giving me a thumbs-up when he had enough to build a simple wall. I grabbed the crafting table and walked towards the spawner.

"Rufus, pick off some stragglers," Punchy ordered since he was having trouble focusing on the trap with having to stop and fight off spiders here and there. The trap was made of what he called 'murder holes'- a solid roof, but the wall had staggered holes slightly too small for a spider to fit through. "And… done. Rufus, Steve, come stand by me so I can seal the door." The two of us managed to squeeze into the one-block-wide space between the wall and the edge of the sphere. Punchy sealed the door, gesturing to Rufus to sit down. "Now we just have to kill a few. They can't reach us through the wall, so you should probably just use your fist and save your bow the damage. Oh, and Rufus- sorry that I made the holes too high for you to reach. You can just rest for now or something."

Rufus turned his head and looked at me as if he'd been disappointed. One of his ears was arced over his head like it does when he's irritated. I guessed that he was expecting to kill some things.

"Wow, Rufus, I never took you to be so sadistic," I laughed, watching him sit down pointedly, groaning in annoyance. In the weeks we'd been trapped there, he'd grown into a bloodthirsty fiend. I actually saw a zombie run away from him one time in a fight, gargling in fear. It was the first and last time I would ever see a zombie afraid.

_Hiss!_ I turned to the wall and gasped, startled, at the hideous spider face, aching to get closer. My hands balled up into fists, punching it in the face until it finally curled up and died. I reached through the hole and reached for the corpse. One of its eyes was discolored, reddish-purplish.

"Ugh. Punchy, I think I got one."

"Well? Pull it out!"

"What? With my _hands?"_ Suddenly the eye looked slimy and untouchable. I reached out and poked it tentatively. "You owe me one, Punchy. You so, so owe me one." I closed my eyes and turned my head, feeling the outline of the eye and drawing it from its socket. Somehow, that seemed more gross than harvesting bones from a skeleton or skin from a zombie. I held it out to Punchy. "Here you go. Bone appétit. Al dead-te."

"How long have you been wanting to say that?" Punchy laughed, accepting the eye. I flinched when he held it up to his face and sniffed. "Whoa! That's hot!" He rubbed his nose and wiped tears from his eyes. "I'm probably going to regret that later. Let's see… Shoot, we only have two, but I kind of want to get back to base. Whatever. Let's go."


	15. Emilia

"Okay, are you ready?" I smiled, holding the eye out to Punchy. He grabbed it eagerly and dangled it over his mouth.

"I'm doing it in three, two, one." He gulped, still holding the eye above his face. After a moment, he dropped it and swallowed it whole. "Actually, it's not that- Oh my Notch. AGH!" He slammed his back to the ground and writhed in pain. His face turned bright red and he was hyperventilating, trying to alleviate some of the heat. I watched him, fighting the urge to laugh until my face was the same color. It took him a while, but eventually the spice went away and he sat up again. "Wow. I, um… Yeah. Wow."

"That was actually even better than I was hoping," I smirked. He punched my arm. "Ow… Now I see why they call you Punchy."

It had been a while since anything too exciting had happened in the sphere. We had enough food to last us a while- be it mostly disgusting food- and seldom left the platform anymore. We were starting to get our hopes up that we could actually escape. Some days we would even try to walk to the exit, though we usually went back to the nest because of exhaustion or fear. Our storage was getting kind of full, though- we had some random items I'd never even considered the existence of, such as Nether Wart and Glowstone Dust. Punchy had gotten his hands on some strange kind of egg we'd been hesitant to hatch until we figured out what it was for. Just in case, we held on to every item we could possibly fit in the chest no matter what it was. Thinking about the strange items, I reached into the chest beside me to lay them out and try to figure out what they were for. The Nether Wart could possibly be used for food if we found some way to cook it into a soup or something; the dust might be collectible so we could light up some more of the area and feel more safe; the egg, perhaps, was just another mob we could kill for food.

"Wait, Punchy, were'd you get glass?" I reached into the bottom of the chest, pulling out three blocks of the material I hadn't seen in so long.

"Glass? I don't think I did that," he replied, looking over my shoulder.

"There's glass in here, and it had to be you because I would remember this and Rufus can't even-" Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a blinding light stabbed at my eyes. I screamed and threw myself away from the chest from which the light seemed to be emanating. Beside it, I could barely make out Punchy's figure, still kneeling in front of it. In a few seconds, the light slowly faded, so I crawled up beside him. "Good Nether that was- AUGH!" Where Punchy's eyes should have been was solid black. Shadows seemed to be emanating from them, like the exact opposite of the last time he was possessed.

"Thank you," he murmured after a moment, breathing out the shadows. He closed his eyes and opened them again, back to their normal state. He blinked and looked around for a while as if just noticing where we were. "It's… Her."

"Her? Who's her?"

"Oh, I see… Little brother has been busy in the past few years." The voice came from behind me- it was beautiful, musical. Like a goddess's. I turned and saw a beautiful woman standing there. Her hair and skin were pale and glowing. She wore pitch-black robes that flowed as if blown in a breeze, and her eyes were blue and piercing. I felt insignificant beside her. Suddenly, she looked down at me approvingly. "You. You have proved yourself worthy of a very important job I have for you. So has your friend," she said, gesturing out to Punchy and Rufus. "Cynwrig. It certainly has been a long time. You have a wonderful taste in heros," she added, looking behind me and laughing. Rufus trotted up beside me and barked a greeting. Rufus? What did he have to do with the goddess?

"Forgive me," I said, feeling that I had to be forgiven for simply talking to her, "but what is happening here? Who are you?" I turned to Rufus disbelievingly. "And who the Nether are _you?"_

"Emilia," the woman replied. "My name is Emilia. I am the goddess of the Nether and patron of adventurers. Friend of Notch, sister of Herobrine, caretaker of souls lost. He who you call 'Rufus-' he is a friend for helping me so long ago when I was still mortal. I requested that he find a hero so I can finally convince my brother to-" Rufus barked and interrupted her midsentence. She nodded and agreed to something he said. "I am getting ahead of myself. You asked what is 'going on here.' My brother, Herobrine, is the ruler of the Aether- or what it used to be."

"Wait, so the Aether is real? I thought it was a fairy tale," I interjected.

"Technically, it is real. But Herobrine decided a century ago that mortals were not worthy of feeling the bliss that the Aether had to offer and closed it off from the Overworld. Any soul that was in the Aether when this happened… Vanished. I need to protect the souls. I must. What is a goddess worth if she cannot even do what she is best at? Anyway, he always had a fascination with humans alongside disgust. Think of this as a testing chamber used for his sadistic enjoyment. With the help of Cynwrig- Rufus- I tricked him into capturing you here and putting himself in a vulnerable position. I've been here the whole time, Steve. You just haven't seen me. The pig men, the potion- I did all of it for the souls. The glass was the first thing you didn't blame on my brother."

"I needed you to collect certain materials first- just in case Herobrine does not comply. We can poison him and end him while he is still weak. First, we need a brewing stand," Emilia continued. With a flick of her finger, the chest flew open, its contents floating in the air. The items on the floor joined them. She picked up the egg and willed it to hatch. A blaze man- a character I'd only seen paintings of in children's books- appeared and, right as he was going to charge at me, Emilia stopped him. There was a brief discussion between the two in what I assumed to be the Blaze tongue. Suddenly, he crumpled to the ground, exposing a golden rod where his spine would have been. Emilia picked it up, simultaneously pulling cobblestone out of Punchy's pocket. In one fluid motion, she morphed them into a small contraption I could almost fit in my hand. She placed it on the ground before me. Then, she forced the glass into a bottle-like shape. "I am afraid those are the limits to my power up here," she sighed, levitating the bottle towards me. "I cannot summon items when outside of my domain. I stole the glass from one of Herobrine's creations, but I cannot make you a cauldron nor water. When you find those materials, I will visit you again. Until then, farewell."

Emilia vanished, her voice still echoing in my ears. I felt disoriented for a moment, feeling her absence heavily in my being. Were we really just visited by a goddess? Was she really gone? Why us?

Or was it all just a dream?


	16. Chests

**SKIP TO THE END OF THE AUTHOR'S NOTE IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY QUESTIONS.**

**Chapter 16! We're getting closer to the finale every day. So, I would like to quickly answer a question I received a while back:**

**In Chapter 6, was 'Half a heart left.' 'Don't die.' A reference to CaptainSparklez's song 'Revenge'?**

**Yes, it was. When I described Sparklez, I was picturing the Usher skin he used for the video. In the same chapter, I also referenced to ChimneySwift11 and mentioned branch mining. Glad someone got the joke!**

**Anyway, you might have read on my profile that I'm working on a sequel for Bowslinger. If you'd like a sneak peak, just leave a review saying something like that.**

**Thanks for your reviews!**

"Don't you think you at least owe me _one_ story?" I begged to Rufus. I wanted to know how he met Emilia and why we were the heroes. "After _all_ I've been through- after all you've _put me through-_ you can't just draw me a picture or something?" His reply was a wistful whimper, like he would tell us the story if he could. After all, he was just a dog. An immortal dog from the castles of the Nether, but still, at the core there lied a dog. You'd think Emilia would at least grant him speech, but, seeing that she was most likely nongentilingual, she probably didn't have a problem with it.

"Do you think you could tell us what else we need for the potion?" Punchy asked. Rufus barked and nodded, clawing at Punchy's pick. When he handed it to the dog, Rufus stuck his nose to the metal part of it. "I guess that means iron?" Rufus barked. "How much?" After a pause in thought, Rufus started clawing at the ground, leaving a small row of ten tallies in the ground.

"And that is exactly ten more iron than we can spare right now," I groaned, more annoyed than worried about collection. "I guess that means we're traveling."

"My absolute favorite," Punchy responded tiredly. "I haven't seen a chest in ages. I can't even see any from the top of the world." Jokingly, he looked up at the ceiling and feigned unconsciousness. After a moment, he added disbelievingly, "You have got to be kidding me."

"What?" I asked, following his gaze to the ceiling. Although we'd never noticed them before, I could see the faint, cage-like outline of spawners, all with spinning images of Blaze men in the center. "Um… Not to state the obvious, but without Emilia we're just food to them."

"Maybe… But what about Cynwrig?"

"Who? Oh, right. Rufus, you're sort of Emilia's right hand wolf, correct?" I inquired, finishing Punchy's thought. Rufus nodded. "So the Blazes sort of obey you, right?" He shook his head. "I guess I can blame that on the language barrier… She really needs to fix that." Rufus woofed and agreed. "That really is a shame, though. We could use the ride, try to reach some of the chests out of eye shot from here."

"Actually… I have an idea. How much wood do we have right now?"

"I get the feeling you were feeling _extra_ morbid when you came up with this one," I said, shaking with nerves. With barely enough sticks to finish, we managed to make two fishing rods that we would use for the free ride. The plan was that we'd climb just within range of the Blazes and, as soon as one shot at us, we would knock the blast in the relative North direction, wait for it to get the perfect amount of momentum, and latch onto it with the fishing rods. It was a risky, stupid plan, but I earnestly hoped that it would work.

Punchy was using excess cobblestone from earlier to pillar us up to the top of the sphere. Sure enough, when we weren't twenty blocks away, the spawners started to churn out Blaze men. One shot at me. The world slowed down- I saw the charge coming my way, and I timed a punch to it perfectly so it started flying the other direction. A split second later, I was clinging to my fishing pole for dear life, hanging on to the charge.

"How is this even possible?" I shrieked over the wind in my ears. I turned and caught a glimpse of Punchy, hanging onto his fire charge less desperately- actually looking like he was having fun. I eased up a bit on my grip, trying to see what he saw in it- opportunity. Everything around me looked less dangerous from in the air. On the ground, I could see particle-sized monsters walking around, completely oblivious to the two food sources literally flying right over their heads. Even at the rate we moved, it was a bit of a trip before we even ran into a single chest, but right along a pitch-black wall, I could actually see several of them lightly guarded.

"Punchy! Do! You! See! Those! Chests!" I exclaimed, fighting to be heard over the wind. Punchy nodded and gestured with one hand to yank on the string of the fishing pole. I wasn't one to question orders.

I was in freefall for about twenty blocks, landing solidly on my feet and hearing the sickening _crunch_ of breaking bones. I couldn't tell which bone it was, but it was definitely bad, pain spreading all the way from the tip of my left foot to halfway up my calf.

Weakly, I managed to limp alongside Punchy, who was also injured, and open the first chest.


	17. Search

_Forget the pain! Forget it! You'll heal!_

I silently screamed at myself for letting a few broken bones slow me down so much. Surely a nearby monster would see my weakness and take advantage of it if I didn't move quickly.

Inside of the first chest I checked was an iron ingot and some beans. I picked up the ingot and left the rest, too tired to try to carry the extra burden, no matter how small it was. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Punchy pick up a few pieces of iron- that made about four ingots. Almost halfway there.

The second chest I checked, this one guarded by a zombie I barely had the strength to kill, had another two ingots inside. Something sticky was soaking my foot. Slime? No, blood. Not sure which was worse. I shook off the queasiness and kept moving, picking up a final number of seven ingots overall. I couldn't even see most of what I was doing because losing so much blood was making it hard to focus my eyes. Something slapped me on the back, hard, but the last of the fight in me left before my consciousness did.

"… No, I don't think… Zombie hit… Yes, it's true. We were losing a lot of blood from the fall, him even worse because his fire charge was higher in the air… Well, he's fine now, right? …Sorry." I could hear bits and pieces of Punchy's dialogue which, from what I could see-which wasn't much- was with himself. "We only got away with nine of them, Lady Emilia."

Emilia? Here already? If we only had nine ingots, but we needed ten of them, why had she shown up? I got a feeling that she didn't come with a heralding of joy.

"He wakes," she whispered in my ear. "The hero has much to learn about the coming journey."

"Coming? As in, new?" I was too exhausted to hold in my sarcasm, even for a goddess. "I think we've been in the middle of a journey for quite a while."

"I do not bring good news, but what I am about to tell you may aid you on your quest," she continued, ignoring my comment. "I have found a location where you might find the last ingot you need. In your current condition, I suggest you stay here while I carry Punchy to the chest for collection. However, once we have the cauldron and bucket, we will have to find a source of water to fill the cauldron, and water does not spawn naturally in this dimension."

"Dimension? We aren't in the Overworld?"

"No… Welcome to the Aether, heroes." Emilia suddenly looked depressed, like if she had just watched something die. It occurred to me that that was exactly what had happened.

"We won't let you down, Lady Emilia," Punchy finally finished. Emilia nodded and vanished in a similar way that she did the last time.

"I feel so out of the loop. _Lady_ Emilia? I thought it was just Emilia," I said when the disorientation passed.

"So much has happened. It's… Complicated, to say the least. Where should I start explaining?"

"Why do you call her 'Lady Emilia?'"

"Well… First, she _is_ a lady. A goddess, no less," he responded. "The other day, she sort of… Do you know what exorcism is?"

"That's like taking a corrupt soul out of a possessed body, right?"

"I guess that's the best way to put it… Well, one corner of my mind was still Herobrine. It had been bothering me, feeling his presence, but at the same time I just couldn't seem to tell you that he was there, watching. Lady Emilia visited me, cleansing that little piece of me. It felt like she'd taken weights out of my hands, and I'm grateful. The least she deserves from me is a respectful title."

"I guess that could make sense," I replied thoughtfully. "So what else happened?"

"She told me about Cynwrig just now. In case you were wondering, yes, he really is a dog. Just a really, really smart one. Apparently she was still mortal and just a child. She was out too late one night and…" He made an explosion gesture with his hand, "Boom. Creeper snuck up on her, caught her from behind. She says she still has scars on her back. Anyway, she lived in a taiga at the time- native land of the wolves- and Cynwrig came to see what the noise was. When he saw a little girl laying injured in the snow, his first instinct was to protect her. He held off the monsters for a whole night, and when the sun came up he towed her to the nearest village for medical attention. He's lived as her partner ever since."

"Whoa." I turned to Rufus, admiring. "So it's just in your nature to save people's lives, now isn't it?" The dog howled, but if he was a human I knew he would have laughed. "And is that it?"

"Pretty much. Emilia is an exorcist and Rufus is a hero. Apparently he prefers Rufus to Cynwrig, but the latter just sounds cooler, doesn't it?"

I scratched Rufus behind the ears lovingly. He had definitely saved my life on more occasions than I could even remember. Somehow, knowing that he treated an immortal the same way made it seem more special, like we might share a fate in common. Gods. I knew it was far-fetched, but the Aether would need a lord eventually, wouldn't it?


	18. Boom

My feet pounded on the cobblestone rhythmically, loud echoes of them reverberating off of the walls. At the end of the hallway I saw a bend with light behind it. I didn't dare smile in victory, knowing I wouldn't make it. Sure enough, I turned the corner and it was there.

The dragon charged at me, sending me flying into the far wall. Every block it touched exploded into particles and entities, opening up the world outside. If only I could slide past it, I could escape… I was cornered. One more lunge and the dragon would have me for lunch. It opened its jaws, grinning devilishly. Purple and gray particles dissolved off of its body until it was a new creature about my size. At first, I thought it was Sparklez standing in front of me, but then I got a better look as the particles cleared from the air.

Half of his face looked like Sparklez- same glasses, same hair, same skin… But the other half was anything but. He had brown hair and burned skin, the different eye constantly glowing white. One of his arms was different, too; it changed at the shoulder to the burned skin and light teal cloth. Herobrine's true form. Sparklez-Herobrine marched towards me menacingly, coming within inches of my face. He balled the Herobrine hand into a fist, sparks of energy flashing from it. It came so close to my face I could feel the electricity. Closer… Closer… As it made contact with my skin, I only felt a brief moment of pain before I woke up, drenched in sweat.

I was on the platform, relatively safe and sound. That was the first dream I had in a long time, the last one being the time I realized that Sparklez was possessed. Somehow, it didn't feel quite right that I was having the dream then- the first nightmare I had occurred right before the book appeared in my house. The second time was right before I came here. Something big was about to happen.

I looked around for Punchy. He was nowhere to be seen, but Rufus sat at my feet, still asleep. Emilia must have already taken Punchy to find the iron. It made me uneasy being alone and nearly defenseless in a time like that, but I did find some comfort in knowing that Rufus was around. He was immortal. He'd keep me alive.

I heard a distant thumping sound, like a giant note block being triggered repeatedly. I looked over the edge of the platform, searching for the source of the strange sound. At first, all I saw was block after block of unbroken shadow, but then I could make out the white dots, flashing only briefly before vanishing.

"TNT!" I exclaimed, shaking Rufus into consciousness. He stood up and barked, startled by the noise. As I reached into the chest to get as much food and materials I could carry, I explained, "there's dynamite rigged everywhere! Up's the only way to go. Hurry, get here beside me!" Rufus sprinted to my side, obediently jumping in cadence so I could pillar us to the ceiling. A Blaze man spawner near us started spinning out the creatures. I closed my eyes and focused. Unprepared to fight, unaccompanied by Emilia, standing out on a limb. I would have to improvise. As the first Blaze approached, I held out one hand gesturing for it to wait. It floated there for a moment, confused. "Okay, here it goes…"

I was never good at learning foreign languages. There was never any need to where I came from, but I had figured out very basic Dovah tongue over the years at the mines. There was a rumor that it was taught to humans by beasts in primitive times, and I was hoping it was a true one.

"_Stop! Friends! Caution!"_ I shouted to the creature. It was taken aback by my communication, so I kept talking. "_Help! Danger! _Umm… Emilia! Goddess Emilia! Em… Eel… Ee-yah! Emilia!" All of the Blaze men around me froze and stared. I hoped they understood me.

"_Person know… Dovah?"_ one of the near ones said in a mechanical voice, drifting nearer. _"Person friend… Emilia?"_

"_Yes. Yes friend Emilia. Help! Danger!"_ I replied, encouraged by it talking back.

"_Lies. Person lies… Of Emilia. Help… No… Will not."_ Another Blaze man hissed.

"_Person not lie. Emilia danger,"_ I cried desperately. They turned to each other in discussion, using Dovah words I'd never learned. Finally, the first one turned back to me.

"_Person know… Dovah. On me. Come," _it said, seeming to want me to get on its back. I complied, helping Rufus climb on with me. After a moment of machinelike grinding, the Blaze started flying away slowly. _"Person… heavy."_

I tried not to laugh and set the creature off balance, distracting myself by looking down. There was hardly the breeze I had experienced the first time we flew by Blaze, so without squinting in the wind I had a more clear picture of the carnage. Mob drops and block entities littered the floor, showing the previously hidden layer of rock. There was still the occasional monster walking around aimlessly, though, which gave me hope that Punchy had survived.

"_Tell… where Emilia is," _the Blaze clanked.

"_Do not know,"_ I whispered. I scanned the floor carefully, hoping to see a glimpse of the man or goddess. The Blaze creaked angrily what I assumed to be their form of a swear word, slowly descending to the ground. I could see its fight to stay afloat, but it could really only go so far.

"_Leave person here. Good… Farewell,"_ it said unhappily. I nodded and thanked it, beginning the walk towards where I assumed the others to be.

Navigating was more difficult without the smooth landscape I'd previously walked on, and occasionally I had to stop and place a block so I could get out of one of the holes. Rufus dutifully followed me, barking occasionally to warn me of coming mobs.

Finally, I saw light around a corner and turned to see Emilia holding a limp, gray-looking Punchy.


	19. Blood

"Oh. My. Notch." My feet couldn't move when I saw him. Punchy's face looked solid and cold. Dull. Blank. He was too still, too unnaturally limp, too silent, and dead. I didn't have to come close to see the death in him.

"Don't be alarmed," Emilia said, moving to shield Punchy from my eyes. "He'll be fine."

"Maybe your archaic tongue doesn't use the same 'fine' that I do. What happened? What exactly happened?" I watched Rufus drag his feet over to Punchy, who he curled up next to.

"He's… Injured," she carefully worded. Her voice didn't sound as magical and full as usual. "He'll be fine. I specialize in dead stuff."

"Was that a joke?" I was shocked. "Did you just make a joke?"

"I rule the Underworld. Is that better? I thought a joke might make you feel better about the current situation." She held both hands over Punchy's chest, and they slowly began to glow and bring light back to Punchy's body. Emilia started muttering. "This really isn't good… Bad, bad, bad… Not good…"

"What's wrong?" She didn't answer. "Are you reviving him? Is he still dead? Don't just mutter things like that without explaining. What's not good?"

"I told you. Punchy is going to be fine." She motioned for me to help her sit Punchy up. Almost as soon as he was sitting, he began to breathe. "We need to get some shelter before something kills another one of us."

The depth in her voice was completely diminished.

Emilia and I managed to build a pueblo-like structure around Punchy with what few resources we could scavenge. She was being noticably quiet, Punchy was still unconscious, and my mind was running in circles around itself. Even Rufus, who usually stayed upright and alert in Emilia's presence, was laying on his side, whimpering occasionally.

"Emilia." I tried one last time to have her answer my question. "What happened to Punchy?"

"I… I dropped him." She wouldn't look up from the floor. "Everything was fine, but it was my brother-that cursed, impudent little Herobrine… He knocked Punchy out of my hands and killed him."

"I didn't-"

"Herobrine used to be the good guy. Everyone wanted into the Aether, so he would just work and work and work until everyone was happy and everyone loved him. I ruled the Nether, where only twisted souls belonged. It was easy to imagine things turning out differently. But then…"

"What?"

"He let it get to his head. Souls climbed over each other just to meet the all-powerful Herobrine- easily fooled and manipulated souls. They became his slaves, so one day he stopped working and stopped making people happy. He's cursed, Steve. People don't just change like that. Something is seriously wrong, and all I wanted to do was fix it. I messed even that up."

"What have you done to mess this up?" I watched a tear slide down her face. "You've done nothing but help Punchy and me since we got here."

"I did _everything_ to mess it up. I tricked my brother into taking two mortal souls- strong, but mortal- into his twisted game. I made my beloved Cynwrig watch me hurt his closest friend. And now?" She grabbed my sword and made a thin slice down her forearm. Red blood dripped out onto the floor between us. "Only mortals bleed."

I couldn't think of a response.

"I gave Punchy what I could. I can't save Herobrine anymore with this weakness. All I can do now is hope I'm still strong enough to get you three out of the Aether." It all made sense. That's why her voice was different, that was how she saved Punchy, and that was why she wouldn't tell me what was wrong. Only mortals bleed.

"We must stop meeting like this," a fragile voice said from across the room. Punchy was leaning forward, smiling weakly at Emilia like he had good news.


	20. Plausible

**Hello everyone! I realize I haven't exactly been the perfect author lately (I had almost given up completely on M:B, actually) but the other day I got a few emails that inspired me to continue the story until I've at least milked a few quality chapters out of it. I think the last time I wrote, I was still in 8****th**** grade (I'm a sophomore now!) and I had just gotten a used laptop from my uncle (this was a shared laptop, actually- my brother melted the battery so I can't use it effectively anymore. NEVER TRUST TEENAGE BOYS WITH FRAGILE TECHNOLOGY.) Anyway, there are a few reasons I stopped writing M:B;**

**I've taken up studying Japanese (ironic, since Steve specifically says he dislikes foreign languages!)**

**High school makes middle school look like Pre-K. I just can't take all the homework.**

**JROTC takes up a crapload of time**

**I've been working on another story lately. It's called **_**64 Below,**_** but I doubt I'll ever put it on FanFiction anyway… Sorry.**

**With the constant updates and snapshots and blah-blah-blah, I have **_**way**_** too much trouble keeping up with all the new stuff happening (horses tick me off. I don't know why.)**

**Anyway, even if I don't finish the series, I thought I might as well tell you guys why. So I'm going to try writing again… School starts Monday, so maybe I should have started earlier, but who honestly cares?**

"I thought of something while I was out," Punchy said as Emilia and Cynwrig helped him stand.

"I didn't know unconscious people think."

"Shut up, Steve. Anyway, I thought of something." He held his hands out to emphasize the announcement. "What if we seek Herobrine out alone?"

"You need to be more specific," Emilia sighed, letting go of Punchy and sitting on the ground. "The plan was to poison him and kill him."

"But what if we didn't poison him?"

"Again, details are the important part here."

"There are four of us and one of him. Two of us are immortal, and we have enough iron for an iron sword each. Well, not for Cynwrig… Sorry, boy. But anyway, we don't need to poison him. We just need to kill him."

"Do you know where he is?" I asked, vaguely intrigued. I decided not to tell him about the update on Emilia.

"No. But I think we might know someone who does." Punchy looked over at Emilia, who had disappeared into the shadows with her black robes. She looked up at him, exhaustion in her eyes.

"I wouldn't be able to tell you," she weakly replied.

"Where do all of the zombies come from?" he inquired, a touch of rhetoricism in his voice.

"Herobrine," she answered. "Oh, I see what you mean. It's possible- not plausible, but possible- that they could know where to find him. It would be nice if they weren't so stupid, I could just ask one up front."

"And skeletons?" I injected.

"They're even worse than zombies," she mumbled.

"It's worth a shot," I replied, climbing to my feet. "Step one, find a zombie."

"They're everywhere," Punchy whispered, poking his head out of the hole I drilled in the wall. "It's like there's a dead guy factory at the far end of the chunk."

"Knowing Herobrine, who would be surprised?" I said. "Emilia, work your magic."

She crawled out of the hole and slowly made her way towards the crowd of zombies, stepping silently as if she feared being heard. Finally, she was close enough to the group to draw attention, and she loudly anounced something in Dovah. The zombies looked around, looked at her, and slowly started walking in the same direction. Emilia motioned for us to follow.

"Do they know?" I asked her under my voice.

"Sort of? I'm not sure, they didn't give me a definite answer."

"Well, that's never a good sign," I sighed. After walking with the undead for a while, we met a wall. The zombies looked up at the wall, and a few of them made digging motions with their hands.

"_Thank you,"_ Emilia said in Dovah, waving her hand to dismiss the monsters, who walked away as if there weren't humans present. "Step two, upgrade our gear and get ready to fight."


	21. Apology

~This is an apology to any of the 4,718 people who read Minecraft: Bowslinger.~

No, there will be no more updates. I am sorry. The last time I published a chapter was in 2013. I was a freshman in high school! Even that was just uploading chapters that had been written in 2011 and 2012, when I was still in middle school.

(I cringe writing this. I did not handle middle school gracefully; I don't hesitate to say that Bowslinger is the only thing I did back then that doesn't embarrass me now.)

I had written all the way up to chapter 36, but at some point those files were all deleted. 2 years is a long time to hang on to 16 documents. However, since 2 years is also a long time to be hanging onto a plot and I doubt I could have told the story better in those chapters than I am about to, let me just give you the conclusion very quickly:

- Steve, Punchy, Cynwrig, and Emilia get all the supplies they need and use the TNT to form a giant pit.

- Emilia convinces a Blaze to carry Punchy above the center of the pit so they can trap zombies inside. Punchy needs a fishing rod to hang on without getting burnt, and after a few chapters of filler- _**ta dah!**_ They trap the zombies.

- Emilia talks to the zombies, who tell her a vague direction she can go to find Herobrine. (I can't remember why they had to be trapped for her to do this. I think Herobrine had warned them not to talk to her or something.)

- They stumble across Herobrine's Evil Office of Evil Doom and Godly Stuff Office. (It's a working title.)

- Oh No! Herobrine Was Actually The Ender Dragon All Along!

- _***epic fight***_

- _***Emilia intervenes***_

- _***Emilia almost dies***_

- _***Punchy jumps in to save Emilia***_

- _***Cynwrig and Steve team up against Herobrine, but as he dies he refuses to grant immortality to the humans. Steve starts to fade from existence.***_ (I think the chapter where this part was explained ended up in the outtakes. Sorry, I was 14.)

- Emilia: "Steve, I'mma be all dead up in here anyway. Here, take this." *throws immortality at Steve*

- Steve: "Thanks bruh" *takes immortality*

- Punchy: "But I loved you Emilia omgomg" *cries*

- Emilia: "lololol u snoozed so u loozed" *dies*

- Cynwrig: "Woof. Let's go home."

- Punchy decides to stay behind and watch as the Aether falls apart (with Herobrine dead, there's nothing left to hold it together so that's a thing). Punchy is depressed that his immortal lady friend is gone so he's throwing his own life away, too.

- Steve and Cynwrig (PS- it's pronounced "sin-rig") go home. Steve doesn't want to be a miner anymore, so he roams the world fighting monsters to protect the rest of humankind from them.

- I can't remember if this was mentioned in the story, but monsters came from the Aether and teleported to the Overworld because shadows acted as teleporters for extraterrestrial beings. When the Aether is destroyed, the monsters stopped spawning (including Endermen; Herobrine's Evil Office […] was atop one of the pillars in The End. The only possible monsters would probably be Pigmen, but even that's only if lightning strikes a pig.)

- Oh, and Herobrine : Aether :: Emilia : Nether :: Cynwrig : Overworld. Since Cynwrig was the only one of the deities to survive, the Overworld was the only remaining realm (i.e. the Nether was also destroyed when Emilia died.)

- _**THE HAPPY END!**_

I know, I know. I could have phrased the summary better. I could have actually written all of those chapters, but guys, I don't think that's fair to anyone. I hope this sad little document can act as my apology for never finishing the story. It was so much fun writing for everyone and seeing how y'all reacted in the reviews! Thank you for reading, as always.

With a trembling heart,

Conchin Oblīta Sum


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